Montana nurses and other healthcare workers were well represented at the Montana Freedom Rally at the Capitol over the weekend. Corinne Hammond is a Billings nurse and rancher who was one of several co-founders of the Big Sky Liberty Alliance.

Hammond says her message at the freedom rally is about the "gross over-reach of our Constitutional rights."

Corinne Hammond: We don't understand why we as healthcare workers trained in medical can't say, "I have a concern" and be respected for that. Why do we have to jump through loopholes, we have to get religious exemptions that are tracked. We have to have our HIPAA rights violated, all of the above. We as healthcare workers should be able to have a choice here as long as every other red blooded American.

I've heard that some of the Montana hospitals are being very good about signing off on medical or religious exemptions to the vaccine mandate, but she says getting an exemption isn't enough. She says you are basically agreeing to be discriminated against.

Corinne Hammond: They are granting religious exemptions, they are too short-staffed to go without us....and when you have a religious exemption, you have to sign a form that's pre-made by them. It has caveats on it, you basically have to agree to be discriminated against to submit the form....they don't have to go under any undue hardship, otherwise, they can revoke it, basically. And so what constitutes undue hardship? None of us know. But we just signed so that we can continue working continue to have our livelihoods without putting our health at risk.

Full interview with Corinne Hammond:

READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

 

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